An additionally or fully recordable optical recording disk was proposed in accordance with the compact disk (generally known as CD) standard. See Nikkei Electronics, Jan. 23, 1989, No. 465, page 107; the Functional Dye Department of the Kinki Chemical Society, Mar. 3, 1989, Osaka Science & Technology Center; and SPIE, Vol. 1078, Optical Data Storage Topical Meeting, 80, 1989.
This disk has a dye layer, a reflective Au layer, and a protective layer disposed on a transparent resin substrate in this order. That is, the reflective layer is in close contact with the dye layer. This disk is specially adapted for CD application. A recording laser beam is directed to the dye layer of the optical recording disk whereupon the dye layer melts or decomposes due to light absorption while the substrate also softens. As a result, the dye material and the substrate material intermix at their interface to form a pit thereat which has a reduced reflectivity due to the phase difference of light.
As opposed to the prior art disk of the air sandwich structure wherein an air layer is provided on a dye layer of the disk in order to form a pit in the dye layer, the newly proposed disk is of the close contact type wherein the reflective layer is in close contact with the dye layer. The close contact type configuration can meet the total disk thickness of 1.2 mm required by the CD standard.